Diplomats from five states toured one of Iran's primary nuclear facilities on Saturday. The visit to the Isfahan Uranium Conversion facility in central Iran comes ahead of a United Nations deadline for Iran to stop uranium enrichment by later this month.

"The message of this visit is that Iran is determined to continue its peaceful nuclear activists," Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, head of the Iranian delegation to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the diplomats from Sudan, Malaysia, Cuba, Egypt, and Algeria, the AP reported.

Soltanieh also described the tour as "an opportunity to see that the IAEA has full surveillance control over the activities of this facility."

The diplomats represent organizations that have a long history of asserting members' rights to pursue their national interests and broadly those of developing countries without being fettered by Western countries.